Leaf's New Lawn Ornament...

[Leaf]

So, I had to go on a 2-night extended trip for work on Thursday. When I got home, I realized something was wrong! As I was parking the Hawk, I noticed that the $300 Wonder Truck had a smug look on its face!

See, Truck has this problem where it likes to go fetch motorcycle / other truck junk, haul it back to the house, and deposit it all around the yard. No amount of training seems to break it of this habit. I think it's just an inherent trait of the breed! Oh well. At least it doesn't dig holes very often!

Ohai, $300 Wonder Truck. You are looking awfully smug today...



Gadzooks!! What have you dragged back this time?!?



Looks like an old sidecar off a Ural Deco! O_o That thing is big. Way bigger than the Ural tubs look in the pictures! And somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 pounds. I think I'm going to have to disassemble it for refurbishing on the back of the truck, because I can't lift it on and off by myself. :P



And there's already water standing in it!



And some rust under the paint! Sheesh, I bet Truck expects me to sand and repaint this thing, too! I tell ya, I think I cut that Truck too much slack sometimes!



The corners where the back of the invisible seat lays seem to be the worst! But it doesn't appear to go all the way through...



Here are those corners after doing a little scraping with the back of my pocket knife to break the peeling paint loose.





See, there's an overlap of metal there. I'm not entirely sure how to get at the rust up underneath of that overlap and get rid of it permanent-like, such that I don't suddenly find paint bubbles and/or holes on the outside of the sidecar at some surprisingly inopportune time a week or a month or a year from now.

Any ideas? I was thinking maybe if I turned it on its side, I could pour some of that anti-rust etchant stuff up under there to neutralize the unreachable rust. Then after it dried I could seal up the seam all around with bondo so water (supposedly) couldn't get back under there. But knowing my luck, that would just end up trapping water and making it rust out sooner than it would otherwise.... =:O

[FR700]

Originally Posted by Leaf

That actually looks nice

Rust treatment is still the same as it has always been .




.

[MotoJ]

POR-15. That stuff loves rust. Follow the directions to the letter and it will arrest all the rust, even up in the crevices, if you can slather some up in there.

http://www.por15.com/

I did by whole tub in it a year ago, and no evidence of recurring rust, and my rig lives outside under a cover. The floor looked like swiss cheese.
You should be able to get away with just your pan inside and outside (up to the waterline, as it were), and save that nifty paintjob......

[windmill]

Ospho, http://www.ospho.com/

A common rust treatment sold in many hardware stores. After using it, paint with POR-15 or similar paint.

[davide]

+1 on the Ospho. Once I had a '79 VW bus and it was in far worse condition rust wise... I osphoed the shit out of it and fixed the problem 4 good. Nice find, btw!

[Leaf]

Thanks for the advice, all! It turns out that I /can/ see a little pinprick of light in one of the corners from the outside, but I think that's from the manufacturer's skillful welding rather than the rust. >_>

I do like that paintjob, but I want to sand/brush and paint the whole thing, anyway. There are a couple of bubbles on the outside sides that worry me, and I want to see what's under there sooner, rather than later when the tub ends up with a big rust hole in the side. >_>

I'm going to repaint with the same paintjob, though, and paint whatever tug it goes on to match. However, I might substitute some kind of purple for the teal.... Unlike the Hawk, I want to do this one right and have a keeper. :3

I was surprised to find that there is no clearcoat.

Did they use lead-based paint on these things back in the day (aka 1998)? I'm trying to figure out if I need to get an honest to god respirator for sanding or if a filter mask will do, lol.

[Leaf]

Truck squeaked and creaked bemusedly as Leaf hopped around on his back, armed with PB blaster, a set of wrenches, and a big hammer. After some cursing and busted knuckles, there was a pile of junk in the yard! "Mission complete," cheered Truck!



(Jeez, I need to replace that latticework someday...)

After Leaf hauled all the parts up into the shade of the porch, Truck peered closer and spotted some skillful Russian welding!



He continued watching as Leaf removed more nuts and bolts. As Truck was relieving himself by dribbling some oil out of his leaky oilpan into the driveway, he heard Leaf comment on how Ural couldn't make up their mind whether to use 12 or 13mm nuts, and seemed to have interspersed them randomly, just to make things interesting.

Slowly, a box of parts grew on the porch.



After much cursing and even more PB Blaster, the tub was stripped clean and ready for rust repair and surface prep! Truck sighed heavily, wishing that Leaf would treat him to a paintjob, too, before he finished rusting out into a heap of parts!



(Ok, I am getting tired of trying to write from Truck's point of view, enough of that!)

The CJ750 balls that MotoJ sent me seem to fit nicely! Thanks MotoJ!



In addition to the balls, I also have some short fat ones and long skinny ones, to suit the preferences of whatever tug I end up trying to hang the thing on.



Trunk lid ready for rust treatment! I managed to save the How to Start Your Ural sticker off the inside, though it'd be cooler if it was written in Russian! D:=



Uhoh! Do I need to replace this, or is the rubber not load-bearing on these parts?



Frame almost disassembled for rust treatment. How do you remove the shock on these things? I can't get the screw out on the bottom, because the stop-thing is in the way, and I can't seem to pound the top part loose after removing the shorter screw up there...



Grumble. Cracked light socket. :/ I'm a little nonplussed about the grounding through the frame deal, too.



Fender disassembled and ready for rust treatment!



Big ol' box o' parts! I hope I can remember where they all go! :P



To be continued, maybe tomorrow......

[Bobmws]

Nice find!
"Big ol' box o' parts! I hope I can remember where they all go! :P"
Hopefully Truck took more pictures as dis-assembly went forward.....

[Leaf]

Yea, he did! He's usually pretty good about things like that, except when he gets huffy with me for not changing his oil often enough.

A big ol' box of parts is like an Adventure in your Own Front Yard! :P

[oppozit]

Originally Posted by Leaf

Uhoh! Do I need to replace this, or is the rubber not load-bearing on these parts?

When they both snap off the sidecar boat pivots on the front mounts and slams into the road in front. Replace them and fit a Safety Catch like earlier Urals and all Dneprs or a safety chain.

Originally Posted by Leaf

How do you remove the shock on these things? I can't get the screw out on the bottom, because the stop-thing is in the way, and I can't seem to pound the top part loose after removing the shorter screw up there...

Sometimes the easiest method is to unbolt the swingarm, drop it down and slide the shock off the top mount, Disassemble, clean and refill the shock with oil of appropriate weight. Reassembly is the process in reverse.

Originally Posted by Leaf

Grumble. Cracked light socket. :/ I'm a little nonplussed about the grounding through the frame deal, too.

Complete lights are cheap from Ukrainian/Russian e-Bayers. Just rewire to suit your bike. You can reverse the wiring so the bulbs are earthed normally.

[Leaf]

Originally Posted by oppozit

When they both snap off the sidecar boat pivots on the front mounts and slams into the road in front. Replace them and fit a Safety Catch like earlier Urals and all Dneprs or a safety chain.

Yikes!!! I think I will replace them both, then. The rubber is pretty hard on the other one, even though it's not cracked...

I found 'em on fleabay for $14, but the shipping from Russia is $22! So I emailed Terry Crawford and Gene Holopaw for quotes. :3

Originally Posted by oppozit

Sometimes the easiest method is to unbolt the swingarm, drop it down and slide the shock off the top mount, Disassemble, clean and refill the shock with oil of appropriate weight. Reassembly is the process in reverse.

Ah cool. I'll try it! I thought about trying that before, but I think I'm going to have to drag the frame down to the shop and use an impact wrench to break the swingarm bolts loose. :P

Originally Posted by oppozit

Complete lights are cheap from Ukrainian/Russian e-Bayers. Just rewire to suit your bike. You can reverse the wiring so the bulbs are earthed normally.

I'm going to try the wonders of Superglue first! I wrapped it up with tape to keep it from falling apart for now, and test-jumped all the terminals to a car battery. All the lights still work! \o/

[Leaf]

Nothing done on the lawn ornament today. Spent half the day at a picnic and the other half of the day rebuilding the brakes on a friend's VT500 Ascott. :3

I did order my paints, though. I want it to look "old", so instead of springing for expensive auto paints, I'm just going to use plain ol' Rustoleum protective enamels over a coat of gray primer. Those Rustoleum enamels have a very very similar formulation to the alkyd enamels used as car paints in the 50s and 60s (according to the interwebs!), and resist fuel and oil very well once they've cured good for a couple of weeks.

As much as the white-on-teal tickles me, I decided to go with something brighter and "friendlier". I'm keeping the same paint scheme, with the white areas, but the teal areas will turn Harbor Blue.



And the white areas will be done in Antique White.



The seams where the paints meet will be covered with a 1/4" 3M black reflective pinstriping tape. In the daytime, it looks plain black, but when light hits it at night, it shines nicely.



This is the closest example of a similar scheme that I can find on Google, except my blue will be a bit paler and bluer and my white will be a bit darker.



I'll be painting the tug to match, whenever I get it, including the frame and outer forks. I plan to build the sidecar seat with white marine vinyl, and recover the seat of the tug with the same stuff. I'll probably attempt to make a tonneau cover out of it, too, if I can decide what to use for a backing.

I probably won't do anything else with it until my paints and tools get here. I sprung for an angle grinder and some cup brushes, too, to chew through the old paint before sanding and rust treatment. The sander takes too long to get through to the bare metal. :3

Also finally bought a real set of manometer gauges, because I couldn't find fittings to go in the Hawk's head ports to sync it with a hose full of oil. :s

[bmwhacker]

I need to find one of those to hook onto my old naked Goldwing....

[Leaf]

I would /love/ to hang it on an old GL1000. :3

I'm trying to trade a broken down car for a '80-'82-ish CB900 Custom, though. Which will be cool if it happens, just because I get a free bike and some junk hauled out of my yard, lol. I'm hoping to hear back about that wheelin' and dealin' later tonight.....

[Leaf]

I sprayed PB Blaster all over the swingarm nuts when I got home. Then waited until just now and went out to try to break them loose.

I had to use a cheater bar, but they came off finally, with a sharp squeak of defeat!

No pictures until next time. It is quite dark out!

Now I must build a shock compressor, something I've been meaning to do for quite some time now, but never gotten around to doing...